


There's No You and Me, this Impossible Year

by yikescalum



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Clemmings, M/M, Muke - Freeform, barely even fluff so im not even gonna tag it, but this is pretty angsty, idk what the hell im doing, ok calums not really in this just mentioned a few times and im sorry, there just wasnt really a place i know i suck, theres nothing rly to tag this as lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:24:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6322150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikescalum/pseuds/yikescalum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can’t figure out for the life of him as to why he refuses to try to fix things when they weren’t that broken to begin with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No You and Me, this Impossible Year

**Author's Note:**

> hello yes its me again, this is quite angsty, in fact the polar opposite of my last post lmao. but anyway its 1:30 am and i sped finished this bc i really wanted it done so it's kind of a mess, but im fairly happy with it!! let me know what you think! oh yeah titles from impossible year by panic at the disco bc im brendon urie trash

 “Alrighty, good run! Let’s rehearse airplanes one more time guys!” Ashton exclaims, far too enthusiastic for someone who just finished an entire concert set the third time in a row. Michael groans, hastily taking his guitar off his body and tossing it to the side, throwing himself into an arm chair.

“Ash, I refuse to do anything else because I am dead tired, so you can shove that drumstick up your overly-excited ass,” Michael grumbles, his words muffled by the arm he had slung over his face. Ashton, unfazed by Michael’s not-so-unusual bluntness just rolls his eyes and gets off his stool, Luke and Calum soon following suit in the shedding of their instruments. The four boys had been “rehearsing their lil butts off” – as Ashton eloquently put it – for their second world tour for hours, and all Michael wanted to do was cuddle up with his boyfriend and sleep for 300 years. Maybe longer. He’d decide later.

Luke slinks over to the tiny brown couch much too small for his lanky body and flops down onto it, closing his eyes, motioning with one hand for Michael to come lie with him. Michael quickly obliges, falling out of the arm chair and draping himself over the younger boy like a blanket. His lips curling into a small smile as Luke kisses his forehead, responding to him by wrapping his arms around the blonde’s neck and pulling at the little hairs at the nape of his neck. Luke chuckles, and tilts Michael’s head up with his pointer finger, and they stare at each other deeply before Luke presses a light kiss to the other boys’ lips.

“Jesus Christ guys, stop having those telekinetic conversations with each other, it’s really weird,” Calum grumbles, a look of faux disgust on his face. Michael nuzzles back into Luke and flips him off, but his stomach flutters. He loves the way that he and Luke can look at each other and know what the other is thinking, and he loves that Calum noticed. He just loves the feeling that he and Luke are special. He loves him and Luke. He loves Luke.

During all this, unbeknownst to the three other band members, Ashton had gone to the refreshments table to get some water, and decided to whip out his phone to update the fans with a Snapchat. Ashton, who tends to not think before he does things, filmed said update video, but failed to notice one detail. Just one, minor detail. In the background he managed to capture Luke and Michael on the couch cuddling. Like, major cuddling. Like, Luke’s hands on Michael’s ass and Michael kissing Luke’s torso cuddling. He then proceeded to post the video and slid his phone into his pocket, unknowingly about to endure the biggest lecture he’d ever receive.

\--

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, ASHTON?!”  Michael hollers, his face the same shade of red as his hair once was. He and Luke had not come out to the public yet for fear of what would happen to the band, and was not happy that they were just accidentally outed. He had never been angrier, not even when Calum accidentally spilled water on his X-box. And he was _really_ mad then.

“Look man, I-I’m really sorry. You know I’d never ever do that to you guys,” Ashton sputters. “May-maybe we can try our best to pass it as just friendly?” The curly haired boy grimaces, preparing for Michael’s attack. He just rolls his eyes.

“Oh yeah, because all friends just platonically finger each other’s asses and kiss, right? Don’t you and Cal do that? Just boys being pals, aren’t we?” Michael feels his eyes start to burn with tears and squeezes them shut, rubbing his temples shakily. He wasn’t as mad as Ashton as it seemed, he was more mad at the world. Mad at the fact that now he and Luke were going to be bombarded with question after question about their gayness, that he might’ve just shifted the bands’ entire career path, possibly for the worse. Mostly, he was angry that he and Luke weren’t protected anymore, that he couldn’t keep Luke safe from hurtful comments and judgement solely based on their sexualities.

Ashton only stares back at him, at a loss of what to say. Luke, who had been just watching this all unfold with his jaw slack, forces Michael into a hug. Calum does the same to Ashton, the oldest boy still stuck in his place, just running his hands through his curly hair.

 _I’m sorry,_ Luke mouths to Ashton, faces softening. He looks back at Michael, who had tears making paths down his heated cheeks. Luke’s heart shatters, he hates nothing more than when Michael is upset. He takes his boyfriend’s face into his hands and softly kisses both his cheeks one by one, then leans their foreheads together.

“It’ll all be okay,” he whispers.

\--

That’s somewhat of a lie. All the boys pile into a small meeting room into chairs too small for their enormous statures to discuss with their management their next move. How were they going to fix this? How were they going to undo all the pain? They talk for an hour, trying to figure out just what to do. And they decide on the thing that was going to hurt them the least; they were just going to try to pass it as platonic. As much as this frustrated Michael, he went with it. So they settled with Michael and Luke both playfully tweeting about it, and then never mentioning it again, and then never making a mistake again (Their management emphasized the nevers). So that’s what they did.

_@Luke5sos: Haha guys, Michael was just having a bad day and needed a cuddle, nothing more. Stoked for Sounds Live Feels Live!_

_@Michael5sos: who doesn’t love a good cuddle?? just a bit tired and cranky and luke was taking up the whole couch LOL_

Michael presses the blue “tweet” button and throws his phone to the side, roughly rubbing his eyes. When Luke tries to pull him into a hug, he dodges it and runs out the door.

\--

Luke thinks it’ll pass soon, and he’s somewhat right. The fans go crazy for a few days, freaking out over the situation, some ecstatic, some just confused. But after a little bit it dies down and they find a new thing to obsess over, like they always do.

But the one thing that doesn’t pass is the fact that Michael has basically been ignoring Luke ever since this whole fiasco started. It’s really stressing Luke out – they’ve barely said two words to each other, and he hasn’t heard him say ‘I love you’ in three days. The night it happened Luke slipped into Michael’s room like he always does, to find him already asleep, or pretending to at least. When Luke wiggled under the covers with him, the older boy grunted and scooted over to the farthest side of the bed. Luke slept in his own room the next night.

Luke hates when Michael does this. When anything ever goes wrong, Michael isolates himself. But he usually lets Luke in, that’s what always separated them, that’s what made them what they are now. Now that he’s not, Luke has no idea what to do.

\--

Luke knocks lightly on Ashton’s door before poking his head through.

“Hey, could we, uh, could we talk?” Luke asks sheepishly. He hates to come to Ashton for this particular subject, but he’s always been the person Luke has gone to for help. Ashton looks up from where he was lightly drumming on his thighs, setting his drum sticks to the side.

“Oh yeah, of course,” The older boy allows, softly patting the spot next to him on the bed. Luke shuffles over and flops onto the bed, rubbing his face. “What’s wrong? I mean – I know what’s wrong but is there like something specif-”

“Michael won’t talk to me and it’s fucking stressing me the hell out,” Luke blurts, saving Ashton the pain. He moves his hands away from his face to study Ashton whose eyebrows were furrowed in thought. Rubbing his chin, he began to speak slowly.

“I mean, man this is tough. I really am sorry,” Luke bobs his head with understanding. “I guess you’ll just have to sit him down and really talk to him. You of all people understand Michael, he’ll do anything to avoid an uncomfortable situation, so just corner him and make him listen to you.” Ashton chuckles humorlessly, and Luke nods slowly. “Look dude, I’m really sorry,” Ashton says with a pained look. Luke decides that this really isn’t his fault, it was just an unfortunate situation. And he doesn’t need anyone else to hate him, so he rubs his back and tells him its fine, thanks him for the advice, and runs out of the room to find Michael.

He finds the blue-haired boy in his room, a duvet wrapped around his shoulders while he furiously presses the buttons on his X-box controller. He _always_ invited Luke to his gaming time. But he didn’t. Luke shakes the thought from his head and goes to do what he came here to do.

“Hey,” the younger boy tries, unsure of how far he can take this.

“Hey,” Michael returns flatly, not so much as even glancing at Luke. His heart breaks just a little more.

“I-uh, you –we need to talk,” the blonde boy stumbles. He was never really the eloquent one. Michael just shrugs, still not tearing his attention away from the flashing TV. Luke huffs and strides over, shutting the TV off and standing in front of it, staring hard at his boyfriend. Or could he even call him that anymore?

“What the fuck was that for?” Michael scoffs.

“We need to talk.” Luke announces. If he had to fight for this relationship then damn it, he was going to go down swinging. Michael just rolls his eyes, but tosses his controller to the side, slightly scooting over on his bed. Luke takes this as an invitation and cautiously lowers himself next to Michael.

“Why are you ignoring me?” Luke says bluntly. He’s sick and tired of beating around the bush. The older boy groans and roughly runs his hands through his faded hair. Luke can see all of his emotions passing through his eyes. He knows Michael better than anyone else, he knows for a fact that he wants this to work out just as much as he does. But he can’t figure out for the life of him as to why he refuses to try to fix things when they weren’t that broken to begin with. “Mikey, please just talk to me,” Luke whines, deciding to be daring and grabbing Michael’s hands. He jerks them back, using them instead to wrap the duvet tighter around himself. He could see the poor boy was fighting back tears. He didn’t know it was possible, but Luke’s heart breaks even more. After an excruciatingly long time of just sitting, Michael finally breaks.

“It’s just, it was fucking luck, okay?” He bursts, violently wiping at the tears that managed to escape. Luke is perplexed.

“What?”

“It was just luck. It was pure luck that the fans just so happened to believe our tweets. Luck that they were able to find something else to pick on. Luck that we’re still a goddamn band, okay?” Luke just stares, completely at a loss of words. Michael had lost the fight against his tears, the droplets now raining freely. “Listen, I still love you, that never changed. It makes me ridiculously sad that you would ever think that I didn’t. But I just love you so fucking much that I can’t do this to you, I can’t ruin your and my dream just because we were careless or Ashton made a mistake or whatever the hell happened, but that’s not gonna be the only time that happens, and I knew that going into this it was going to be hard and that eventually something like this was going to happen. That we would get to a point where—” Michael takes a break to suck in air, and Luke uses this opportunity to stroke his cheek. “—where we’d either have to sacrifice us or our dreams and I just can’t do that to you, I can’t rip away your dreams from you, I love you too fucking much.” Michael finishes, collapsing onto Luke, sobs wracking through his tired body. Luke wraps his arms tightly around him, positioning them so they’re lying down on the bed, and just lets Michael cry. He holds him tight, alternating between kissing him and his forehead, and whispering sweet encouragements in his ear. He had started to tear up too. He was glad, ecstatic really, that Michael didn’t hate him, but utterly heartbroken that he felt that he had to end it between them.

They were gonna fix this. They had to, they couldn’t go on like this anymore. Completely hiding from the public was detrimental to them more than they knew (obviously), and he wouldn’t stand to see the love of his life hurt so badly. So while they fell asleep in each other’s arms, both still in their clothing with tears running down their faces, Luke thought of an idea. It was crazy and stupid and they’d probably get in trouble for it, but he was going for it. And with that, he falls asleep with the first real smile he’d worn in days.

\--

Luke was bouncing off the walls. And not because it was their first performance of their second world tour, but because of his plan to fix what had been broken. Michael was still moping, as Luke had not informed him of his master plan, but had put on a brave face for the show. And as they all ran out onto the stage, adrenaline was pumping through Luke’s veins.

Even if not right away, everything was going to be okay.

\--

Luke could barely focus the whole show, but he managed, only through the pure exhilaration that Luke forgot came with guitar shredding and jumping and singing along with his three best friends. But finally, the time had come, the end of the show.

“Thank you, Nagoya!!” Luke screeched into the microphone, wiping his sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. “We’ve had an absolute blast with you guys, definitely a perfect way to kick off our tour, so thank you!” he exclaims, looking at his bandmates for approval, who all nod and holler in agreement. They had all set down their instruments and Ashton had gotten off his stand to get ready for the final bow, but Luke wasn’t done yet. “But,” Luke begins, the boys all eyeing him suspiciously. “I have something to announce.” Now the boys were bewildered, trying to get Luke to stop, but there was no stopping him now. Luke sets down his guitar and walks over to Michael, searching his eyes for a second. They were filled with wonder and almost fear, but also understanding and contentment with what was about to happen.

 Luke cups his face with both hands and kisses him passionately. Michael freezes at first, but finally eases into it, grabbing Luke’s hips and kissing him back. The crowd is dead silent for half a second, before going absolutely mad. Luke breaks away from the kiss reluctantly, and leans over to the microphone nearest them.

“Michael and I are super gay for each other!” Luke shrieks. The mixture of the crowd screaming and his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears is all so much, but he’s okay with it. He smiling and holding Michael’s hand and he knows that their management is going to kill him and he’s the happiest he’s ever been. And to top it all off, he’s tackled by Calum and Ashton in a hug, and the four of them just stand there, rocking back and forth.

He had done it. He had fixed what was broken, and who cares how it affects their band. If him dating Michael were to ruin their careers, Luke decides that’s sure as hell a band he wouldn’t want to be a part of. But none of that mattered now. Luke was happy. Luke and Michael were happy.


End file.
